sports The Farmington swimming and diving team couldn't match last year's 14th-place finish, but it was still a successful weekend for the Tigers at the Class 2A State Championships.
The Tigers competed in five events, advanced to the meet's second day in two of them and scored eight points while placing...
Farmington, 55024

Farmington Minnesota P.O. Box 192 / 312 Oak St. 55024

2013-06-13 17:27:54

The Farmington swimming and diving team couldn't match last year's 14th-place finish, but it was still a successful weekend for the Tigers at the Class 2A State Championships.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The Tigers competed in five events, advanced to the meet's second day in two of them and scored eight points while placing 34th out of 42 scoring teams in action at the University of Minnesota Aquatics Center.

"It was a fun weekend at state this year," Farmington coach Ryan Hamen said. "All of the boys were excited to go to state, but they knew they had to focus and fine-tune their swims even more to make it back on Saturday."

The 400 freestyle relay did just that, advancing to Saturday's final 16 with a 15th-place prelim time of 3 minutes, 21.14 seconds. The foursome of seniors Connor Kealy and Zach Holton and juniors Aaron Lane and Christopher Kirchmann matched that 15th-place showing in the finals and scored six points with a school-record time of 3:19.70.

The same four relay swimmers narrowly missed advancing in the 200 freestyle relay with a 17th-place time of 1:31.09. Anoka grabbed the 16th and final spot in the consolation finals with a 1:30.94.

Kirchmann accounted for the Tigers' other two points in the 50 freestyle where he reached the consolation finals and placed 15th in 22.36 seconds. He missed the cut by three-tenths of a second in the 100 freestyle with a 20th-place time of 48.90.

Junior Evan Carufel got the Tigers started at the meet with a 24th-place score of 130.55 in the 1-meter dive.

Matt Steichen has been the sports editor at the Farmington Independent and Rosemount Town Pages since 2007. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. He has previously been a sports writer at the Sioux City Journal and Le Mars Daily Sentinel and the sports editor at the Austin Daily Herald.